The New Asylums: Jails Swell With Mentally Ill

America's Jails Face Growing Need to Provide Mental-Health Treatment

By

Gary Fields and

Erica E. Phillips

Sept. 25, 2013 10:33 p.m. ET

CHICAGO—The sound of clanging steel doors and agitated voices in the Cook County Jail bullpen was deafening. Amid the din, Robert Miller, who would turn 19 the next day, wept quietly. Anger and sullenness were common here. Uncontrolled crying was a sign of a bigger problem.

Mr. Miller was being held on a drug-possession charge and was waiting for his day in court. But his anguish caught the attention of a woman on the other side of the bars. Elli Petacque Montgomery, the jail's chief clinical social worker, listened as...